I had seen her rigid and controlled with Mrs. Bid-well. With me she had finally trusted enough to let down the barriers—whoop with laughter and show me her pranky, unlatched self. Head to head, we had played Monopoly like two kids, or two adults—maybe just like two equals. Clare and Phoebe.
How mean of me, then, to tremble as I gingerly put my arms around her. To feel a frightened pounding in my stomach at the weight of her against my arms. There was not an ounce of the “dangerous maniac” in my Aunt Clare. There was not an ounce of nastiness or violence. She was odd—oh, yes, she was eccentric, she was not like anyone else in the world. But “crazy”? I no longer even knew what the word meant. The next day I made up with Clare. Two days later I was on my way home.
For a while everything seemed strange. I thought about Clare endlessly. My parents, neighbors, friends—all seemed so tight, squeezed-up, and dull. I had become accustomed to the Crazy Clare world where feelings showed on faces, adults said things like “liar” and “dope,” danced when they were happy, and stood in corners in their despair.
A few times I began letters to her. “I miss playing Monopoly with you.” “Be sure to give my regards to dear Mrs. Bidwell.” “I have a new song to teach you.” But my real life was taking me over. Friends. Music. School. My parents, my own room, movies and TV, and learning to play tennis. Friday nights were for washing hair, Sunday afternoons for rides in the country in our Willys Jeep.
My mother still called my aunt once a month. Oddly, Clare never asked to speak to me, nor I to her. Well, it really wasn’t odd about me. I felt guilty, remembering my fear of touching her, my fear of her. And she—had she sensed that fear? Had she not forgotten my calling her crazy?
A year has passed. I hardly think of Clare at all anymore. Only, sometimes, I see a face that reminds me of her—it’s the eyes, I think. And when it happens, all at once I’m overcome with longing to visit her, to lie on the floor and play Monopoly in my pajamas, to hear Clare whoop with laughter.
But then I think of those dark little attic rooms, and I remember how she stood with her face to the wall, and how she followed me around one day. Now she’s opening the refrigerator … taking out the potatoes … chewing them, chewing, chewing … And I’m frightened. Yes, that’s the truth.
Still, when I look into Amelia’s brave flier’s eyes, my heart marches, and I know that it doesn’t matter about being frightened. It really doesn’t matter. Being frightened is not the point. Not the point, at all. “Amelia Earhart, Amelia Earhart,” I whisper, and then I know that someday I will go back to see Clare, just as I will, someday, fly.
How I Run Away and Make My Mother Toe the Line
My mother is Marlene Marie Victoria Thornton. I’m Marlene Marie Theresa Thornton. My mother writes letters to her sister in San Diego, California. At the bottom she signs, “Love to Sister Ginny from your sister Marlene M.V. Thornton.”
Ever since I learned my letters I put my name down on paper like this—Marlene M.T. Thornton. Wherever I go to school—Rochester, New York, or anyplace, kids say, “What’s the M.T. for?” I say, “Marie Theresa.” They giggle, say, “No, it’s for empty!” I get so mad when they say that. I just get myself furious. I think, Why did my mother name me such a stupid name! But I don’t stop signing Marlene M.T. Thornton on all my school papers. That’s my name.
I sign it in big letters. MARLENE M.T. THORNTON. Sometimes a teacher says, “Very nice writing, Marlene.” I tell my girl friend, Lucy, “Nobody better not say nothing about my name. ’Cause if they do, I sure will beat their butt.”
Lucy laughs. “You can do it,” she says.
Lucy is skinny and smart. I’m big and dumb. I know I am dumb. Once I hear a teacher say it. “That Marlene is a dumb kid. But you can’t keep her back. Be like keeping a woman back.” The one who says that isn’t my teacher now, Miss Shelby. That teacher was in Rochester, New York. Sure glad I’m out of that city.
I had to live in Rochester, New York, for one whole year after my momma says she has had enough of everybody. First she kicks out my brother’s father. That’s Lonny Greenwood, my stepdaddy. Lonny Greenwood made my momma too mad, he made her just furious going with another woman. I feel sorry seeing Lonny Greenwood, my stepdaddy, a real nice man, going away. Next, my mean old momma sends my brother, Lance Vern Greenwood, to his grandmother in Washington, D.C. And then she sends me, Marlene Marie Theresa, to my grandmother in Rochester, New York.
My mother says she’s going to live alone, get rid of all the leeches, and that’s that! I was so mad. She didn’t have to kick me out. My little brother, Lance Vern, he was giving a whole lot of trouble. Smoking, stuff like that. “Ten years old,” my mother says, “and thinks he knows everything. Well, I’ve had it. You’re going to your grandmother’s, learn some respect, both of you.”
So I go to Rochester, New York, and live with my grandmother Ruth. For one whole year I live with her in her house. Cute little house with a real attic, backyard, and everything. My grandmother just loves gardening, she grows great big flowers and the best tomatoes.
My grandmother, she could make some mean nasty faces about things, but she was a nice old lady. Didn’t beat me or nothing, unless I did something so bad. Let me eat all the Pop-Tarts I wanted for breakfast. Never said I had to make my bed, except once a week I gotta put on clean sheets. But, still, all the time for one whole year I was saying to her, “Wish I could go back and live with my own sweet momma.”
Every night before she ate supper, my grandmother put her teeth on the table. Put her spearmint chewing gum on top of her teeth. Then she’d turn on the TV news. Pretty soon she’d say, “The world is a nasty, ugly place, Marlene Marie Theresa.” She’d watch some more news. House being bombed. Little kids stole away from their families. Poor men out of work. Pretty soon Grandmother Ruth is making her ugly faces. Looks just like a witch who could scare you. Whew! Every day I would say to myself, “Don’t care if I never see one of my grandmother’s ugly old faces again!”
I wrote my mother a letter. “You going to come get me? I got to look at Grandmother Ruth’s teeth on the table every night. Watch her make ugly faces. She got whiskers, too.”
Wrote my mother another letter. “I’m a real good girl. I never done anything wrong. I sure miss you. You are my own sweet momma. I’ll be so happy to be gone from Rochester, New York. I just don’t like this city.” I signed my letters, “With love to my Dear Mother from Marlene M.T. Thornton.”
One day my mother comes for me. She says, “Guess what, Marlene Marie Theresa? I got a new job, in a typing pool.”
I think, What is a typing pool? I’m so dumb I think she means something like a swimming pool.
Momma says, “New job and new apartment. Isn’t that something?” And she says, “Marlene Marie Theresa honey, you’re going to come live with your mother again, baby. Back home where you belong.” And she smiles at me and calls me Marlene Marie Theresa honey about one thousand times.
I sure was happy. Sure was dumb, too! ’Cause, guess what? After just a little time living with my momma, I’m so low and miserable feeling I could go right back and live with my Grandmother Ruth!
My mother don’t let me do nothing. Can’t go here, can’t go there. Gotta come right home from school. Gotta do my homework. Every day she says, “You do your homework yet?” Yells all the time. Makes me do all the work in the house.
“Wash the dishes! Sweep the floor! Take out the trash!”
That’s her special thing for me. Take out the trash! “Marlene Marie Theresa, did you take out the trash yet?” Every day, “Take out the trash.” Why don’t she take out the trash?
She says, “I’m working all day. I’m tired when I get home. You gotta do something for this household.”
I say, “I’m doing everything.”
She says, “Now you know that’s not so. Who shops? Who cooks? Who pays the bills? Did you make your bed this morning?”
Every day I gotta make my bed. Why? Nobody sees it. Didn’t m
ake my bed at my Grandmother Ruth’s. My mother says, Gotta keep the room clean. Gotta put everything away. “It’s not nice to show your underpants on the floor,” she says. “Put them in the hamper. Hang up your blouse. Fold those socks together. Put them in the bureau.” Can’t leave nothing out or she yells at me like some old nasty witch.
I say, “Don’t yell at me so much!”
She says, “Don’t you bad-mouth me.”
I say, “You the one with the bad mouth.”
Whap! Slaps me right smack across the side of my head. I cry and do some screaming. Makes me so mad to be hit.
My mother says, “Oh, you’re such a big girl and you’re crying. You’ll disturb the neighbors,” she says. “You better stop that. People need their rest. Everyone works hard. Me, too,” she says. “I am so tired. Just worn out.”
She wants me to feel sorry. I just feel so mad. I think how she always says, “Oh, my temper goes with my red hair!” But everybody knows she gets her red hair right out of the Miss Clairol bottle.
In my room I pull off all the covers I made neat in the morning for her. Throw them on the floor and wish I was back in Rochester, New York. I wipe my face on the pillow and wonder to myself, You gotta stay with your mother? No matter what? Is that a law?
Next day in school I ask my girl friend, Lucy, “You gotta stay with your mother? No matter what? Is that a law?”
My girl friend, Lucy, shakes her head yes. She is eight years old. My mother says, “Why are you friends with Lucy? You’re twelve.”
I say, “I like Lucy.”
We walk to school together every day. Lucy don’t bother me like other people do. I mean staring and all that. I got everything a woman has. Boys stare at my chest a lot. Diane is the prettiest girl in my class. I’m the biggest girl. I’m bigger than all the girls, bigger than most of the boys. Sure bigger than Miss Shelby. She’s scared of me, giggles every time I ask her something. Why’s she scared of me? I don’t do anything to her. I try hard to learn. I don’t want to be so dumb all the time.
Lucy don’t have homework yet in her grade, so sometimes she helps me. Reads with me, helps me with the arithmetic problems, stuff like that. Lucy don’t mind. She likes to help me.
Then my mother says in a mean voice, “You do your own homework. You don’t need an eight-year-old snot to do it for you. You’re having trouble reading. Your teacher says you are not reading on a sixth-grade level. Do your own homework!” And she gives me a slap across the arm.
I say, “Why’d you slap me?”
She says, “Marlene Marie Theresa, you have to learn. You have to do your own work. Won’t always be someone around to do it for you. I want you to learn. I can’t watch over you every minute. You have to learn, and you have to be good!”
“I’m good,” I say.
Then she says, “Did you take out the trash?”
Is that all she knows? Take out the trash! Do your homework! Clean your room! Cook the supper! She can think of one thousand things for me to do.
“I don’t want you hanging around,” she says. “There are a lot of bad boys around. You stay away from them. You study hard and you be good.” She says working hard, doing my own homework, and taking out the trash gonna keep me from being bad.
I’m not bad.
I never do nothing bad till I run away.
What happened was, this one day me and Lucy decide we gotta have some fruit salad. “I want some fruit salad,” Lucy says on the way home.
“Oh, me, too,” I say. “I really want some fruit salad. Don’t you, Lucy?”
“Yeah, I want some fruit salad so bad,” Lucy says. “I can just taste that fruit salad.”
We go to my house to make the fruit salad. My mother is still at work. There’s a note on the fridge for me. The note says, “Marlene Marie Theresa, wash the kitchen floor. Scrub the sweet potatoes and put them in the oven. Set the table and get started on your homework.” The note is stuck to the refrigerator door with a little magnet that looks like a teddy bear.
“That’s a cute teddy bear,” Lucy says. She pulls it off to look at it, and the note falls down on the floor. “Oh, oh, sorry,” Lucy says. “I got your note all messed up.”
“Well, who cares?” I say. “Just a stupid old note.” And I say, “Marlene Marie Theresa, wash the floor,” in this high funny voice. Lucy laughs. So I say, “Marlene Marie Theresa, put those sweet potatoes in that sweet potato oven.” Lucy laughs some more. So I put my hands on my hips and I go all over the kitchen, wriggling, and saying how I should do my homework and all that, and Lucy almost falls down she is laughing so much.
“Oh, stop,” she says, “I’m gonna pee my pants.” And then we laugh even more. And we are still laughing when we open the can of Salada Fruit Salad. Looks so good, full of those little red maraschino cherries and grapes and all sorts of nice juicy stuff. I dump it in a big red bowl.
“You got any walnuts?” Lucy says.
“Sure,” I say, “’cause my mother just bought a whole bag full. She loooves walnuts.”
“Walnuts taste wonderful in fruit salad,” Lucy says.
We shell about half the bag and throw the walnuts in the fruit salad. Lucy tastes the fruit salad. “Still needs something to make it perfect,” she says. I taste the fruit salad.
“Tastes real nice to me,” I say.
But Lucy says no, and we decide this fruit salad gotta have cottage cheese in it. We put in my mother’s diet cottage cheese and stir it around.
“Now it tastes real, real juicy,” I say.
“Well, I don’t know,” Lucy says. “Don’t you want it to be perfect?”
“Sure,” I say, so Lucy looks in the cupboard for something else to make the fruit salad perfect.
“I got it,” she says, and she takes down a package of semi-sweet chocolate chips. She opens the package. I get a little bit worried. First my momma’s walnuts, then her diet cottage cheese, and now her semi-sweet chips.
“My momma wants those semi-sweets to make cookies,” I say.
“Oh, she won’t miss a few,” Lucy says. She dumps a whole ton of semi-sweet chocolate chips into the fruit salad. I grab the package out of her hand. Chocolate chips spill all over the floor. “See what you done,” I say to Lucy.
“You done it,” she says.
“You done it, you skinny string bean,” I say.
“You done it with your big hands,” she says.
We are both laughing like fools again.
“Clean it up,” I say to Lucy.
“You clean it up,” she says.
“You’re smaller, so you do it,” I say.
“You’re bigger, so you do it,” she says.
“Beat your butt if you don’t,” I say, and make a real ugly face like my grandmother’s face when she watches TV news.
“Not afraid of you, Marlene Marie Theresa.” Lucy sticks out her tongue. She knows I never touch her. I always say, Beat your butt, but I never touch nobody. Not afraid, just don’t want to. I say to myself, Marlene Marie Theresa, don’t hit nobody. It’s not nice.
I rather hug Lucy than hit her. But I grab her anyway, just for fun, pretend I’m gonna make her clean up all those semi-sweets. She’s a fast little booger, ducks away. We’re pretending to fight, all over the kitchen. The semi-sweets are getting mushed by our feet. “It’s a chocolate floor,” Lucy says. “Yum yum!” We laugh so hard we sit right down on the floor, squash some more semi-sweets.
Right about then my mother comes home. Sees Lucy and me sitting on the chocolate floor. Sees walnut shells all over the counter. Sees her empty diet cottage cheese container. Sees semi-sweets rolling and squashed all over the place.
She starts screaming and hollering. “Marlene Marie Theresa Thornton, what are you doing? This place is a wreck! Are you going crazy? What is this mess?”
Lucy and me look at each other. My momma is screaming real loud, but we can’t stop giggling for a second.
“Lucy, you get on home,” my mother hollers. “Marl
ene, clean that mess up. Go on, Lucy! Go on, go on!”
“Don’t bad-mouth Lucy,” I say. “She didn’t do nothing.”
“Yeah, I did,” Lucy says. “I spilled the chips on the floor, Mrs. Thornton.”
“No, she didn’t,” I say.
“Yes, I did,” Lucy says. “Mrs. Thornton, I did it.”
“Both you fools shut up,” Momma says. She shoves Lucy out the door, and smacks me hard three or four times, saying how I always make so much trouble for her. Then she runs to her room, slams the door.
I pick up chocolate chips. Think I’d rather see my grandmother’s teeth on the table with chewing gum on top than be beat up all the time for nothing.
Momma opens her door and hollers some more. “That cleaned up yet? Marlene Marie Theresa Thornton, you better clean that up good! You better clean that up in a big hurry. I can’t take much more of this.”
I pick up some more mushy chips, thinking about Momma pushing Lucy. She shouldn’t have done that to my girl friend. Just thinking about it is making me so mad. My momma’s a mean nasty person. I kick some chips. Don’t want to clean them up. Maybe I won’t. It’s her floor. She can clean up her own stupid old floor. Why’s she always hollering and screaming and hitting on people? I walk out the back door.
I walk down the street. It’s a hot night. Lotsa people out on their stoops and steps. Two dogs humping each other. Somebody is making something real good for supper. I smell hamburgers. Wish I had a hamburger. Keep walking. Cross the street. Go past the school and tell myself I’m running away.
That’s good, I say to myself. You run away, Marlene Marie Theresa. You run away, make her sorry for being so mean.
I keep walking, down another block.
“Hey, Marlene.”
I look around, see Diane from my class. “Hey, Diane.”
“Whatcha doing?” she says. She’s got big beautiful eyes.
“Nothing.”
“Where you going?”
“No place.”
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